White River Junction
The Hartford High girls hockey team displayed a strong defensive effort from sophomore goaltender Zoey Pfeiffer and broke a tie with two third-period goals to propel the Hurricanes to their first win of the season on Wednesday, 4-2, against the Kingdom Blades at the Wendell A. Barwood Arena.
Kingdom is a co-operative between North Country High and Lyndon Institute.
Kingdom came out of the gates hot, tallying 10 first-period shots on net. The Canes’ defense was slow to start, but heated up quickly thanks to Pfeiffer, who energized her team with a couple of highlight saves among her 17 for the game.
“(Pfeiffer) is a hard worker, the first in the gym and she just started goaltending and playing hockey last year,” Hartford head coach Bill Goldsworthy said. “The jumps and strides she has made are immense. She should keep blossoming and will become one of the top goaltenders in the state, if she isn’t already one.”
Pfeiffer’s first real test in net came about four minutes into the contest. The Blades’ Liza Morse skated up ice with a breakaway, but she was stonewalled by a calm Pfeiffer.
It didn’t take long after that for Hartford’s offense to heat up. On Hartford’s second shot of the game, with 6:30 left in the opening period, defenseman Alyssa Leonard scored on a point shot that made it through traffic into the back of the net. Blades goaltender Erin Sanville didn’t have any visual on the puck until it was too late.
Isabel Stack recorded the assist.
A minute and a half later, Hartford (1-8) got the puck back in front of the net. It bounced around and was finally poked in by Brianna Roberts, unassisted, to increase the lead to two.
The second period is when the Canes’ defense, led by freshman Nora Knudsen, really stepped up and allowed only one shot on net the entire period to help out Pfeiffer.
But the offense couldn’t widen the lead while tallying only five shots.
“We did a much better job in the neutral zone,” Goldsworthy said of his team’s strong defensive effort in the second period. “We had the wing play off and anticipate (Kingdom’s) passes in the neutral zone, causing them to have trouble entering our zone.”
The win didn’t come without some pressure from Kingdom, however. The Blades’ Olivia Matteis scored a pair of goals within the opening five minutes of the third period to bring the game even at 2-2.
Goldsworthy set out to inspire his team in order to get that much-coveted first win of the season.
In the third period, Goldsworthy said to the bench: “Hey folks, just do what you’re trained to do. Believe in yourself and we can win this game.”
Captain Jasmine Wilson changed the momentum back in the Hurricanes’ favor with 9:33 left to play when she darted out on a breakaway and shot a rocket over the glove hand of Sanville.
With a little over two minutes left, Kylie Clark cemented the win with a shot just past the stick of Sanville.
Roberts had both assists in the third.
“My philosophy is to build from the goaltender out,” Goldsworthy said. “We stopped their wraparounds and counteracted their pick plays and had much cleaner breakouts. The girls came together physically and mentally for the second and third periods, and I think that was a really big plus.”
The Hurricanes’ offense had 17 shots on net.
Hartford will travel to Brattleboro on Saturday.